Posted on 07/28/2010 9:21:29 PM PDT by truthfreedom
Yes this would be like cigarettes in that there will be a tax. Sure people do home grown but this prop goes to where they sell it and make income. It’s actually not popular in Mendocino and other underground markets because it drives the price down.
It'll also be interesting to see how the feds react.
I’ll spare you the morality of this issue. Since morality and being a real conservative are of no value to you.
But think - on an economic scale - when you say “And it’ll take large bucks out of the prohibition industry”, do you really believe the cartels will go broke, disappear and vanish away like a Chicago bootlegger back in the 20’s?
Don’t be naive. All legalization will do - with regards to the cartels - will turn them into legal and legitimate businessment who pay taxes.
And of course the demand will be greater. But this is where you get to tell me all those pesky murders will go away and- oh yeah - our illegal immigrant problems will be done with.
And so on.
You libs are living in a dope induced haze.
If this passes, dope dealers across the country are going to have to get used to a lot lower prices.
It’ll also be interesting to see how the feds react.
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Oh absolutely. Sure. Lower prices for all.
Just like alcohol and cigarette prices keep falling and falling based on the taxes levied against them.
/sarc.
Once the gubmint legalizes it, they will tax the bleep out of it. Which - like any tax - drives our economy further down the tubes.
Yet this is what liberals want. Legalized pot and higher taxes.
Yippee.
I would suggest that the socon focus entirely on the sexual stuff and not the drug stuff. With the sexual stuff, you have 2000 years of tradition. With the drug stuff, less than 100 years. Heroin was sold by Bayer.
Gay marriage involves changing the meaning of a word.
Legalizing drugs involves more freedom, less government, which Conservatives typically like, except drugs. Which makes Conservatives sound a bit like hypocrites when we talk about wanting less goverment here, here, here and here, but the same amount of government or even more here. We accuse the Democrats of simply wanting to make legal the stuff they like and making illegal the stuff they don’t like. But we do a version of the same thing with drugs.
Totally different thing with gay marriage and transsexuals.
Gay marriage currently doesn’t win at the polls, and transsexuals would likely be less popular in a referendum. Hint.
I personally do not think a man wearing a dress should be allowed to use a womens room in a Denny’s in Bangor, ME.
How about a referendum on that? Men wearing dresses should use the men’s room instead of the women’s room. Watch what position the Democrat politicians take. A great wedge issue.
I remember seeing an amusing vintage Bayer ad which touted its Aspirin (at that time, a valid trade mark) and its Heroin (also a trade mark) side by side!
At least amusing to us moderns. The aspirin could do something which no opiate could, which was to decrease inflammation and fight fever. Put together there would be a beneficial synergistic effect. The main problem, which inspired the ban of Heroin from the pharmacy (and to the street), was that people reportedly found it easier to get hooked on it once it was no longer needed, than on morphine. The chemical transformation from the natural product, oddly enough, was similar for both. Aspirin is ACETYL-salicylic acid, while Heroin is ACETYL-morphine.
There probably will be a tax like a cigarette tax, but the size of the tax will be determined by the locality, which I think is the right way to go. Some localities won’t want to allow the sale of it at all, so they won’t. Others might want a high tax, to discourage consumption. Others might try to hit the sweet spot to maximize direct income, others might keep the taxes low in order to help the industry, encourage drug tourism and all the job creation and income it brings.
The Bay area would probably try to hit the sweet spot. The Bay area will likely become the Amsterdam of California. Taxes will likely be lower in Norcal.
Prop 19 will likely drive the prices down. I think that overall, the opportunites for growers could be greater, but they certainly would have to adjust to the changing market conditions. There might be a Bill Gates of the marijuana industry. There could be a famous grower or a famous pot dealer from the US, but I don’t know who they are.
Ideally, there would be one big store in the Bay Area. All the growers can take their pot to that big store. The store can pay the growers a good amount and charge the customers a good amount. If these growers are growing the best pot in the world, they’ll get paid even more money, because people will know what the best pot in the world is, who grew it, where to get it. And consumers will pay a lot of money for the best pot in the world. And the pot store will have the best pot and will pay the grower a lot of money.
The best growers who grow the best pot will make a lot more money.
Since you know about this stuff, would raw opium be considered an effective pain reliever, in the class or asprin tylenol or advil?
And would raw coca leaves be an effective stimulant in the class of caffeine?
I think anabolic steroids will be next. Classifying them schedule III was went overboard just because of a couple of stupid, unsupervised teens.
I know about as much as a grade schooler would know if the history books were honest. You’ll need to go to a doctor to get the ultimate scoop.
The reason any medication is isolated from its source when put to medical use is to “standardize” its administration. A teaspoon of opium might vary in potency depending on where it was grown. A teaspoon of unstandardized opium which was appropriate to yesterday’s pain might be overkill sending today’s patient to serious la-la land or be woefully inadequate. So many milligrams of morphine in a pill will not vary that way.
I agree with what you’re saying and understand that.
I’m not anticipating that people would try to substitute opium for heroin and morphine and oxycontin and all the popular prescription narcotic street drugs, but might use opium as a replacement for OTC painkillers like asprin, tylenol, advil.
A lot of people spend money on asprin, tylenol, advil and if they could just grow a couple plants and make a little opium that they might make into a tea, they might not have to spend money on OTC painkillers.
From an ethical point of view, the pharmacists (who could prescribe at the counter into the early 20th century, until doctors monopolized that role) seem to have learned early on that you don’t mess around with opium when you got something that needs that degree of pain relief, like a broken bone. And neither would I. I’d want quickly to figure out how many milligrams of morphine, hydrocodone, or whatever it takes and stick to that until the situation has healed.
Welcome to Free Republic. Just what we need around here.
Another liberal.
Lets see what we have here.
Someone who believes the escalation of meth, cocaine and other harder drugs is an agenda of freedom
Someone who has not been following the lenient sentences handed out to rapists and sex perverts. Someone who is not aware that child molesters serve a few years and are paroled out to prey again.
Someone who ignores the not so suble marketing of alcohol and tobacco to our kids - thinks it won’t also happen with pot.
Someone who thinks legal pot will be put it into the hands of a business (meaning the cartels) that is regulated under state law, and therefore we will all live happily ever after.
I would suggest you take a big hit off that bong - and go back to DU. But sadly - you will fit right in with the other liberaltarians here at Free Republic.
So again - welcome.
“Equating them shows you either have an agenda or are ignorant of the facts.”
True. But as a psychiatrist, I can rather soundly say that marijuana is not nearly as benign of a drug as people make it out to be. I see patients who have more than likely ruined their lives with it.
“It’s a slippery slope. Frog in a pot of water”
[EDIT: Funny, I started typing the below before getting to your actual post. We were thinking exactly alike.]
Much like unilateral divorce was. We were promised divorce rates wouldn’t rise substantially. And you can bet that the weakening of marriage and the end of putting family above all else lead to gay marriage. Anyone care to go back in time and poll what percentage of people at that time would think something so depraved as two men marrying would be endorsed by the state and voted in by the foolish and bankrupt electorate?
Actually I think this Prop. should have a sunset clause so that voters would have to re-visit the issue again in say five or ten years. That way, the citizens can see if the experiment worked, or was a failure.
This is an interesting Tenth Amendment issue. Will the Obama Administration go the the mat with California over the issue like he has with Arizona?
We have many different types of conservatives here on FR, some are social conservatives, others are fiscal and others are constitutional conservatives. Its a pretty big tent. I label myself as a constitutional conservative and see no federal role in making nationwide marijuana laws. If a state makes a law for a product for intra-state use, then there is no federal jurisdiction. Just like Montana and its gun manufacturing laws baring BAFE.
While I do not plan to start smoking pot if the prop is passed, it will be interesting to see how this plays out not only within the state, but nationally.
Obama probably won’t go after California like Arizona. Many Dems support Prop 19, and he’d lose Dem votes if he did.
I agree it will be interesting. This could be the beginnings of a huge industry. It’s very possible that a few people could end up making a whole lot of money.
IPO for the new marijuana startup Company X. Company X has contracts with some of the best growers and seed breeders. Company X just opened its 500th store nationwide with profits of $100 million. Etc. It’s easy to see companies being created and becoming huge.
No, I was implying that people who seek to legalize marijuana have an agenda of freedom. That has nothing to do with meth, crack, heroin, etc. I already stated later in my post that those drugs are life destroying.
I’m not sure what DU is, but I will gladly take a huge rip from my bong.
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